Uber’s engineering head resigns after harassment claims surface

Uber Technologies has asked its senior vice-president Amit Singhal to quit the company

San Fransisco, Feb 28: The San Fransisco based transport networking company Uber Technologies has asked its senior vice-president Amit Singhal to quit the company for failing to disclose a sexual harassment allegation arisen from his tenure at Alphabet Inc’s Google, an Uber spokesperson said on Monday.

Uber’s move comes as the transport services company is investigating allegations of sexual harassment in its own firm.

Earlier in February, a former female engineer at Uber Technologies said in a widely read blog post that the managers and human resources officers at the firm had not punished her manager after she reported his unwanted sexual advances, and even intimidate her with a poor performance review.

The charges claimed by Susan Fowler, highlighted the long existence problem of gender discrimination in the technology industry.

Uber Technologies on last week hired former United States Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a review of the claims by Susan, and Chief Executive Travis Kalanick called the allegations by Susan “hateful and against everything Uber stands for and believes in”.

Travis Kalanick on Monday asked the senior vice president of engineering Amit Singhal to resign after technology news website Recode informed Uber of the previous sexual harassment allegation, the Uber spokesperson said. Recode was the first to report Amit Singhal’s departure on Monday.

Amit Singhal, who was hired in last January, did not disclose the allegations when Uber Technology hired him, nor were they revealed by reference checks, the Uber Technology spokeswoman said.

Amit Singhal did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

In a statement to Recode Amit Singh denied the allegation of sexual harassment but acknowledged a dispute with Google.

“Harassment is unacceptable in any setting. I certainly want everyone to know that I do not condone and have not committed such behaviour, In my 20-year career, I’ve never been accused of anything like this before and the decision to leave Google was my own.”

-Amit Singhal wrote to Recode.

The web major Google did not respond till yet to a request for comment.